Reaching the HIV-infected community through a pharmacy
HHA trains pharmacy aides to dispense medications and do HIV education.
Most new cases of curable sexually transmitted infections occur among young people. Young women may have limited ability to negotiate safe sexual interactions. Without education and knowledge of their HIV serostatus, young men may engage in high-risk behaviors.
Sexually transmitted infections can produce easily recognizable symptoms that remain untreated because of the relatively high cost of medicines. Because there is only one doctor per 10,000 individuals in Haiti, most of the poor have no access to doctors. Less than 12% of Haitians have access to prenatal HIV testing.
In response to this challenge, HHA opened a pharmacy at the site of the storefront community center. Two young HHA sponsored volunteers were trained alongside a physician as pharmacy aides. These pharmacy aides now dispense medications to clients and counsel them to notify their partners who then also receive free medicines.
The treatment of sexually transmitted infections can help prevent the transmission of the HIV virus. All clients are then referred to the local hospital for syphilis and HIV testing.
A focus of our HHA training was to help the HHA sponsored pharmacy aides to develop their counseling skills. The identification and treatment of a sexually transmitted infection provides an important "teachable moment."
The young person learns directly about his/her vulnerability to sexually transmitted infections. The pharmacy aide then provides education about the efficacy of condom use for prevention of sexually transmitted infections.
HHA is working to empower HIV infected or affected individuals to reduce their risk of transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. In interviews, the pharmacy aides report that clients are referring many other individuals who have symptoms of sexually transmitted infections to receive free medicines and free condoms.
Copyright © 2006 Haitian Health Allies